An early-semester grievance roundup

Another semester at Tech is now underway, and, as such, I have a bunch of complaints that need to see the light of day.

First, what is up with the library lobby redesign? It looks awful, with a strange, half-assed, hipster-chic vibe going on.Why did that need to happen? The now-vanished counter was a classy look and didn’t leave the librarians sitting at a random island as if waiting to be rescued by the goddamn Coast Guard. I get that Crosland Tower is being renovated, but efforts should be focused there on that eternally-delayed project, not bleeding over into the west wing.

Next, it has come to my attention recently that the price of bottled soda in the vending machines around campus has been bumped up from $1.75 to $2.00. Great. As if the former price was not enough of a rip-off. The sad thing is that the new freshmen will never know any other reality.

Then there’s the terrible rollout of two-factor authentication. Okay, so there have apparently been some security breaches in the past. Why, then, is the burden of security being forcibly passed on to me, the end-user? Don’t outsource the responsibility of keeping the data secure. And before you come at me talking about how two-factor is some kind of standard in the tech industry, I don’t care. If it is, it shouldn’t be.

All of this is not to mention the unequivocally clumsy way that students are being made to start using the new authentication system. Is it really so difficult of a process that I need to physically go to OIT and be helped? Is there really no way it can be set up remotely? I even tried to have a friend add me to the system to avoid what I knew would be an unsavory time-waste of a trip. But their account did not have the required permission or access to help me. Neither did another friend, who had been on two-factor for a bit prior due to being a tutor. What a disappointment.

Another thing — why this huge push towards not having any backpacks at the career fair? The fact that the demand is plastered in bold lettering on every single career fair poster and advertisement almost makes one think that they’re afraid backpacks will take all the jobs. Seriously, what is the big fear here? If it is serious, and there is no area to drop backpacks as in years past, the expectation on the part of the event organizers that students can deal with what will for many be massive inconvenience is simply mind-boggling. It’s unreasonable to think that students attending the career fair will be able to spare time to make the journey to the CRC, stand in line, talk to recruiters, trip back to their home, get their stuff and then go to class, especially when the fair will overlap with nearly every class slot during the day.

I could go on. But if my time at Tech has taught me anything, it is that many distasteful and unfortunate experiences are sure to come.